Sunday, February 19, 2012

Ruins of Detroit

Ruins
are the visible symbols and landmarks of our societies
and their changes, small pieces of history in suspension.

The state of ruin is essentially a temporary situation that happens at
some point, the volatile result of change of era and the fall of empires.
This fragility, the time elapsed but even so running fast, lead us to
watch them one very last time :
being dismayed, or admire, making us wondering about the permanence of
things.

Photography appeared to us as a modest way
to keep a little bit of this ephemeral state.

- Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre

Marchand and Meffre spent 5 years photographing the ruins of Detroit to capture what they call the "remnants of the passing of a great Empire." I got Matt their book for Valentine's Day (nothing says love like decay and destruction), and it is fantastic. The images are haunting, beautiful, and repulsive all at the same time. Not to mention that the book itself is huge and gorgeous, with a great picture of Michigan Central Station printed on a cloth cover. I think just about anyone would be happy to get it as a gift- it is definitely not one of those books that seems to have been published solely to be artfully stacked on a coffee table.